


In Place of Your Fathers...

by tirsynni



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, Erik Lehnsherr had envisioned his future, his moment of triumph, Schmidt's death. It was supposed to be his crowning moment of glory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Place of Your Fathers...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mabyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabyn/gifts).



> Written for **mabyn** for the Secret Mutant Madress 2015. This is based on the prompt: Erik has suffered a lot in his life. What started as a quest for vengeance evolves into a campaign for justice, even if he has more ruthless ideas of what justice looks like than other people he knows. But then something happens that makes him rethink everything he thought he knew.

It was supposed to be his moment of triumph.

For years, Erik Lehnsherr had carried that coin. He had envisioned the moment when he would move it as _Herr Doktor_ bade, move it right through the man’s damned skull. Putting on Schmidt’s helmet only added that much more glory to the moment: stealing Schmidt’s crown, making it his own, using Schmidt’s own coin to steal the light from Schmidt’s furious eyes. He drank in the monster’s terror like the finest scotch.

He lifted Schmidt’s carcass with a control he could never have imagined, driven from god to corpse, and he carried it outside like a flag. Schmidt’s death was only the beginning, Erik knew. His future stretched out, bright and glorious, his and his brethren. For that one, beautiful moment, _all was good_.

Except that human woman started screaming, and then Raven started wailing that Charles was dead, oh god, _Charles was dead_.

Erik’s moment of triumph as just that: a moment in time, there and gone, bright and glorious like a shooting star. Then he dropped Schmidt like so much trash and hurried to the downed Blackbird.

The human had left, something about the ships, and Erik ignored all of it to reach Charles’s side. Raven and the other mutants were there, crowded around him.

On his back, white and still, Charles looked less like himself and more like Schmidt, now dead in the sand.

Hank was there, looking for a pulse with his new massive paw. Erik cursed and shoved them all aside. “What happened?” he demanded, yanking his own glove off to touch Charles’s neck. His skin was cold.

Raven huddled against the side of the plane, arms wrapped around herself and shaking. She looked small and young, too young to be there. Nausea grew in Erik’s stomach as he pressed his fingers harder against Charles’s neck.

“Moira…Moira said he just started screaming and grabbing his forehead.” She choked out the words, and tears began to stream down her face. “Then he f-fell over. Erik, what’s _wrong_ with him?”

There, a pulse, but weak and thready. Erik cursed and pulled Charles into his arms. He remained limp as...limp as…

“Don’t you do this, Charles,” he whispered.

Schmidt was dead. His reign was done. After all these years, Erik had killed him.

Now he pressed two fingers against Charles’s forehead, gentle as a kiss, and wondered if he had killed his only real friend, too.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. _None of this_ was how this was supposed to go. He was going to bring Schmidt’s miserable corpse out and Charles would be in such awe of Erik’s new control and they would be free to –

Moira burst into the plane, face hard and pale. “They’re going to fire the missiles.”

“What?” Alex burst out. He carried himself oddly, and for the first time, Erik realized he was injured. He had no idea who was injured or where Schmidt’s people were. He hadn’t noticed anything beyond Charles. “But we just _saved_ them!”

Erik felt it now, felt the ships moving in the water, arming themselves. The solution was easy, so damned easy…

Erik touched Charles’s pulse again. If he listened closely, he could hear the man’s ragged breaths over the din around them.

After all these years, Erik had finally moved the damned coin.

_Did you feel it, my friend? Did you feel it go through your skull, too?_

Had Charles called to him? Asked for him to stop? Had Charles known what was going to happen?

Charles’s pulse was getting weaker.

Erik felt the missiles move outside. He leaned over, pressed his lips to where Schmidt’s coin had cut through the man’s skull, and gently rested Charles on the ground. It felt like his world had shifted, like it had when that insane man had dove into the water and pulled him to the surface, had stood beside him and encouraged him to move the satellite dish. Like then, he had no idea where that shift would lead.

“Watch over him,” he commanded Raven. The girl started but then nodded, her face growing hard. Charles had never seen it, still saw her as a young girl that he needed to protect, but Erik recognized the warrior she could become. No one would harm Charles while she was there.

Not even Erik.

When Erik stepped outside, he felt the missiles loose themselves from the ships. Moira gasped beside him, but to Erik, the missiles were nothing. Charles had taught him that. Just chunks of metal to manipulate.

It was nothing to send them to the water.

He heard Sean babbling something behind him, but he didn’t care. Erik turned to Moira, who watched him with wary eyes. “Tell them to leave,” Erik barked. “I don’t care where.”

Charles – his people – were more important right then than some pathetic, frightened humans. If they tried anything else, Erik would destroy them. For now…

Erik dismissed the humans and turned back to the Blackbird. He couldn’t save his mother, but perhaps he could still save Charles.

_“You’re not alone,”_ Charles had whispered, and Erik clung to that as he jogged back into the Blackbird. Hank knelt beside Charles once again, directing Raven to lift Charles’s eyelids so he could see Charles’s eyes. Charles already looked dead, like Edie lying on the filthy floor of Schmidt’s building.

Charles told Erik that killing Schmidt would not bring him peace. Had he ever imagined this outcome?

_You are the closest I have to peace, Charles. Don’t you dare die here_.

Erik touched Charles’s neck again, seeking a pulse. Still weak but no change from before.

_You wanted a future for mutants, Charles. If you want it so badly, you need to be here to lead it._

Charles had held Schmidt still long enough for Erik to kill him. Erik needed Charles to wake up so he could ask him why he had done that. Had Charles known this was going to happen? Why hadn’t Charles let him go?

Except Erik knew the answer to that. If Charles had done that, Erik would be dead.

“My friend,” Erik whispered.

Somewhere, in the far distance, he heard himself barking orders, to see if the teleporter was still there, if the ships were still firing, to look for any other threats. The rest of him was focused on his only friend dying before him.

If Charles died, it would be at Erik’s hand and Erik’s hand alone, not for his glorious mutant cause but to save Erik’s life.

Erik leaned over and kissed his forehead again. This was not an end, he swore. No matter what happened, no matter what he had to do to see it come to pass, he would see this day as a _beginning_.

**Author's Note:**

> These two are remarkably hard to write gen. Of course, since canon struggles with it, too, it's all right. This was also vaguely inspired by Age of Apocalypse.


End file.
